“Wonne Monat Mai – the Month of Joy”

„Wonne Monat Mai“, they call it here in Switzerland, that month when lilacs bloom pastel, peonies bright red, and the meadows are a swath of white, blue and bright yellow flowers. The forest is still a fresh green, the air clean after a spring rain. It feels so very good to be alive. It’s in this month that a friend of ours is diagnosed with a brain tumor. His father died of a brain tumor at almost the same age. We’re all afraid. And aware of our own vulnerability. We only have today, and today is so beautiful. And hurts so much.

Every day I go to the garden first thing and last thing with a pair of scissors to cut all the slugs I find in half. This evening, after a short rain, I cut a lot of them in half. If I don’t, they eat all my lettuce and the hearts out of my zucchini plants. Sounds cruel? My neighbour and others I know pick them off the plants into a pail and pour boiling water over them. Does that sound better? Or should I scatter those little blue pellets that eat their insides and kill them slowly? Life is a matter of survival of the fittest. Sometimes it’s the slug, sometimes it’s my food. Life just is not fair if you’re born a slug. Or if you have cancer. The lilacs and peonies are still beautiful though.